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Friday, June 12th, 2015

Daily Archive

Warping minds, one explosion at a time

Posted by Office-Bob on 12 Jun 2015 | Tagged as: The Church of Pyro

You’ve probably heard of the saying, “Those who can’t do, teach?” Well, you’d better hope that isn’t the case because as of this year I am now certified by the Explosives Regulatory Division (ERD) of Natural Resources Canada (NRC) to teach the Display Fireworks and Special Effects Pyrotechnics courses as part of the national licensing program.

There have been a number of changes to the licensing program over the years, so I should explain what the program used to be and what it is now…

When I first took the Display Supervisor course the process went as follows: you spent the first half of the day in the classroom learning the theory (including things like safety distances and such) and then you’d go out into the field for a practical demonstration where students would be shown how to load display shells into mortars (the tubes from which fireworks are launched) and would get to light the fuse and send a shell into the sky. Assuming you did everything right and passed the class, you were issued a Level 1* Display Supervisor license and were automatically allowed to purchase certain product and fire Level 1 shows. Once you’d had a certain number of shows under your belt and were able to provide letters of reference showing you’d gained additional experience, you were able to apply to upgrade your license to Level 2.

The ERD overhauled the licensing system a while ago and decided that instead of allowing a complete newbie to run their own show, which might not be the best idea, they’d change the licensing program to something more graduated - so instead of being able to run a show as soon as you received your license, they changed to a graduated system where you first work as a Display Assistant for a number of shows - then, once you’ve gained experience (and letters of reference from show supervisors you’ve worked for), you can apply for your Display Supervisor license. This license is the same as the old Level 1 but under the new program they’ve broken down the additional operator capabilities into a set of endorsements as follows:
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